Gentle
Teaching

Gentle Teaching is a non-violent approach for
helping people with special needs that focuses on four primary goals:

Teaching the person to feel safe with us.

Teaching the person to
feel
engaged with us.

Teaching the person to
feel unconditionally valued by us.

Teaching the person to
return unconditional valuing to us.

These four goals contribute to building
a sense of companionship and community for the person.

Gentle Teaching does not focus on compliance or obedience, but focuses
on teaching Individuals to feel safe with others. In order for this to happen, we must look at ourselves as
caregivers. Looking at
ourselves is assessing how we use our Tools (our hands, eyes, words and
presence) to facilitate an understanding of safety with those we work with.
We learn best when we feel safe. If the Individuals we work with do not feel safe, the learning
environment is non-existent.

Gentle Teaching uses the relationship between the Individual and the
Caregiver as the foundation for teaching. This
relationship requires a feeling of companionship. But some Individuals with cognitive impairments or challenging
behaviors do not develop effective strategies to experience a feeling of
companionship. As a result,
they may not feel safe. By
trying to teach and provide a feeling of safety, we improve their quality
of life.

View the Quality of
Life section to learn how Globe Star puts Gentle Teaching into
effect.